TREPONEMATA 525 



Transmission. The disease appears to be transmitted by suctorial 

 insects. Mackie 1 believes the human louse, Pediculus vestimenti, is 

 commonly the one involved, but Manteufel 2 has produced evidence 

 suggesting the rat louse, Hematopinus spinosus, is at times a carrier 

 of the organism. 



Treponema Novyi. Norris, Pappenheimer and Fluornoy 3 appear 

 to have been the first to report relapsing fever in America. Several 

 cases were studied; the incubation period averaged from five to seven 

 days, and the mortality varied from 2 to 6 per cent. Novy and 

 Knapp 4 studied the organisms in detail and discovered slight but 

 constant differences which distinguished them from Treponema 

 recurrentis and Treponema duttoni. Schellack 5 named the organism 

 Spirocheta novyi. Mackie 6 was able to differentiate Treponema 

 novyi from Treponema duttoni by agglutination reactions, and 

 Manteufel 7 showed that the serum of patients infected with the 

 organism of American relapsing fever did not agglutinate Treponema 

 recurrentis and vice versa, thus confirming Novy and Knapp's obser- 

 vations. Noguchi 8 grew the organism in pure culture. 



Treponema Carter!. The causative organism of the relapsing fever 

 of India. In 1879 Carter 9 observed the organism originally named 

 Spirocheta carteri, but now known as Treponema carteri, in the 

 blood of patients suffering with Indian relapsing fever, and he suc- 

 ceeded in inoculating mice with the organism. Novy and Knapp 10 

 have shown that this organism differs from those of the European, 

 African and American relapsing fevers. 



According to Schellack, 11 Treponema carteri measures from 0.3 to 

 0.35 micron in diameter and from 15 to 20 microns in length. The 

 organism has not been grown in pure culture. 



Treponema carteri is infective for rats and for experimental animals, 

 but it typically causes but one relapse, contrasting in this respect 

 with the organisms of the American, European, and African relapsing 

 fevers respectively. It also differs from the other Treponemata in 

 its agglutination reactions. 12 



1 Brit. Med. Jour., December 14, 1907. 2 Arb. a. d. kais. Gesamte, xxxix, No. 2. 

 3 Jour. Inf. Dis., 1906, iii, 266. * Ibid., p. 291. 



5 Arb. a. d. kais. Gesamte, 1908, xxvii, 364. 



6 British Med. Jour., December 14, 1907. 



7 Arb. a. d. kais. Gesamte, 1908, xxvii, 327. 8 Jour. Exp. Med., 1912, xvi, 208. 

 9 Deutsch. med. Wchnschr., 1879, v, 189, 351, 386. 



10 Jour. Inf. Dis., 1906, iii, 291. 



11 Arb. a. d. kais. Gesamte, 1908, xxvii, 364. 



12 Manteufel, Arb. a. d. kais. Gesamte, 1908, xxvii, 327. 



